If you work within the food industry then it's likely you will already understand how important it is to maintain a high level of food safety standards. Restaurants are rated by local councils, customers and the Food Standards Agency on their hygiene standards meaning they have to ensure everything is at the highest standard it can be.
The handling of food is a very big responsibility. Lots of people rely on you to ensure they receive a meal which tastes good and is safe to eat. It is every chef and restaurant owners nightmare to have someone becoming ill after visiting your restaurant. This can be really damaging to a restaurants reputation.
A restaurants reputation is its most valuable asset. In fact, many restaurants don't even feel the need to advertise as their reputation means they are guaranteed recommendations from the public. It is always better to receive custom on the back of a recommendation than from an advertisement as it means you are doing well as a business.
Learning and practising food safety is vital to a restaurants success. A negative reputation can damage a business, and lead to a large loss of revenue. There are a number of different of factors you can consider when working in your kitchen.
A very important aspect of food safety is ensuring that food is kept and served at its correct temperature. For example, if you have meat, you need to make sure it is kept in a cool place before serving. Similarly, if you are serving hot food, especially white meats, you need to ensure that the temperature is hot enough to ensure that bacteria doesn't multiply. It's the Head Chefs job to ensure that all staff members are aware of the temperatures of which food needs to be kept.
Cleanliness within the restaurant is another vital part of food safety. Customers are constantly coming and going, so you need to ensure that you are constantly keeping areas clean and disinfected. This could mean something simple like wiping tables down regularly, or even washing your hands constantly. A lot of food contamination or food poisoning can actually be traced back to bad hygiene procedures. For example, after handling raw meat you need to make sure you follow cleaning procedures before handling other foods.
A shocking five million people contract food poisoning every year, don't let your restaurant add to this number. When was the last food safety course you went on?